


santa barbara

by livj707



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25163719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livj707/pseuds/livj707
Summary: it's like staring into a mirror. the power she hoped for isn't there. the closure she hoped for isn't there.---a look into the final confrontation between ellie and abby.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	santa barbara

ellie almost doesn't recognize her.

 _her._ the woman strung up high on a wooden pole on a california beach, flesh carved into with scars and seeping wounds, hair about ten inches shorter than it was before. her wrists are tied above her, head slumped, reddened skin burnt and peeling. the woman with glazed eyes that contain so little hatred it makes her blood _boil._ the woman strung up for her sins, left alone to bleed and suffer and die.

ellie couldn't care less. she couldn't give a single shit.

"help me. please."

abby's voice, raspy and defeated. her eyes pan down toward ellie, widening once the realization washes over her. then...

"it's you."

maybe part of her hoped she'd would be more afraid. that she'd cower in fear upon seeing ellie approach, brandishing her weapon, eyes ablaze with vengeance and rage so powerful it makes her vision swim in shades of red. instead abby just looks, looks at her. ellie looks back. it's like staring into a mirror. the power she hoped for isn't there. the closure she hoped for isn't there.

she cuts her down, slashes her knife against the rope that was holding her up; abby falls to her knees pathetically, crumbling into pieces. even in the darkness ellie can see how gaunt she is, how fragile and starved, skin stretched tight over visible bones.

ellie knows that feeling. she's been there, in that position, so many times before.

she could do it now. she can do it now.

she waits. abby stumbles over to her young charge - the little boy - and brings him down from his post gently, maternally, with all the love and care of a mom or big sister. he's just as beaten, just as scarred, his breath ragged like the sound of an empty spray can. they're both barefoot and covered in blood.

abby lifts him, hoists his limp and sickly body in her thin arms. she seems labored by the feat, despite how little he is. ellie watches, waits.

abby gestures toward the shore. "there are boats this way."

ellie follows.

and so they march, down an overgrown path on a lonely summertime beach, swallowed up in the dead of night. the humidity is as dense as the fog, as heavy as the white sand they trudge through. they march, the three of them, a strange group of misplaced kids, uncertain of where they'll go next or what to do or why they're here.

(ellie knows. she knows why she's here.)

there are two boats floating atop the still waters, oppositely placed, illuminated by the hovering moon. it feels remarkably like a choice, like two paths laid out for two women. she doesn't believe in fate. never has. abby carries the boy to one boat. ellie goes to the other, sludging through the waves that soak into her clothes and try to bring her down to the ground, and the iciness is agonizing but it's _something,_ something at least.

her hands clutch the soggy and splintered wood. a sudden sharpness in her side captures her attention, the worst of her injuries. she brushes her fingers against it, observes the wet crimson on her palm, and...

and there it is again.

the basement stairs, the swing of the door. screams and cries. his torn jeans. his face, battered and bleeding, the stuff matted into his hair and beard.

"joel, get up."

"joel, fucking get up."

"please, stop. please don't do this."

" _joel, please get up._ "

she knew it was unfixable, that he was unfixable. he couldn't even fucking _move,_ couldn't even lift his head or look at her or whisper some half-assed last words that might've made grieving him over the past year somewhat bearable. he left her with nothing but the crackling image of his still body, hollow and empty.

(but he was once unfixable, that afternoon at the university in late autumn, wasn't he? and still, still, he made it out.)

(so why not now? what's different? why isn't he still here?)

it's the rage she remembers when she drags herself through the water to abby, sweating and dizzy and disoriented. she took joel away from her. she took everything from her. "i can't let you leave."

abby refuses to turn around, refuses to face her. "i'm not doing this."

ellie grabs her by the hair, slams her head-first into the shallow end, delivers a kick to her stomach. abby grunts and wails in pain, crawling upwards onto her knees. looks up at her with eyes that well with desperation.

"no. i'm not gonna fight you."

ellie isn't swayed. how dare she act so innocent? "yes, you will." she moves to the other boat where the little boy rests and presses her knife against his throat. he barely reacts, clinging to his slight and fleeting consciousness.

abby stares, a wordless plea. "he's not a part of this."

images of dina flash through her mind. she maintains control of the blade, though can't bring herself to press it deeper. "you _made_ him a part of this."

abby rises to her feet. nods. accepts. "okay. okay."

she tackles ellie to the ground and crushes her against the sand and the tide, and ellie slashes her knife against her cheek. the saltwater pools into her many cuts and scrapes with burning intensity. she attacks and abby shoves her, punches and kicks and throws her aside. they fight hand-to-hand, tirelessly, full of fury and all-consuming guilt, wrestling each other in ocean foam with equal blood and wounds dirtying their young and malnourished bodies.

ellie manages to pin her to the ground, and she presses her knife to abby's chest, has it digging into her flesh when she knocks the blade out of her hand. it splashes into the deep. gone, lost, forgotten.

images of dina flash through her mind again. jesse. joel.

joel.

it always leads back to joel.

from then on it's all hands and fists and elbows, battling in hopes that each hit will leave the other girl down for good, knocked unconscious, out of the game. they're knee-deep in frozen water, two children, two skeletons, hollowed-out shells of fighters. it's the end of the line, she knows, for one or both of them.

she gives it her all. she tackles abby into the sand and dips her head below the surface of the waves and that's when she knows she's got it, that familiar rush, that _knowing_ that you have the upper hand. she pins her in place, submerges her, moves her hands to her wrists, her shoulders, her neck. abby kicks and thrashes, bringing water up around them. it's the loudest sound she's ever heard, and soon her ears are tuning it out, a shrill ringing taking its place. the splashes get louder and faster. ellie pushes harder, presses her knee into abby's stomach to hold her there, feels her arms and legs burn with exhaustion and adrenaline and fear and _please_ just stop moving, stop kicking, stop fighting, just die, die, _die-_  
  


joel is on the front porch.

  
  


he's strumming his guitar. it's warm, melodic, his hands balanced and calloused and experienced. he's played this song before, she knows how it goes.

  
  


he sees her approach. smiles. 

ellie squeezes her eyes so tightly she fears she'll go blind.

her hands tighten around abby's throat.

she doesn't know why, how it will relieve her.

and it won't. it won't. it won't.

she thinks of him, _joel,_ on the porch that day. boston, the day they met. on the ground next to their horse at the heartless dawn of winter, ellie hunched over him and begging him to stay alive. his arms around her in the snowed-in restaurant with flames engulfing them, smoke billowing around them. the day she woke up in his car in an ugly hospital gown. the museum. the party. joel's words toward her, which she met with coldness and aggression.

but he was trying.

she knows that.

and this, _this_ , is not him.

joel is love.

_was._ was.

joel was love.

this isn't joel.

  
  


she lets go.

abby coughs, splutters, falls forward on her hands and knees, gagging on the salt and the sand and the dirt. crawls backwards, choking on the air.

it's so silent then, between the two women. ellie just sits. she begins to sob.

"go," she whispers, and she sounds so small, so lost. so unrecognizable. "just take him."

it's not worth turning him into her, a child without a parent.

it's not worth feeding the cycle. her friends, the wlf...the war isn't worth it.

  
  


when ellie gazes out at the neverending arched bowl of sky and clouds, sat in the frothy water that goes up to her ankles, she half expects abby to approach her from behind and finish the job.

almost, almost, almost.

she doesn't know which she'd prefer.

but abby and her boy race off into the night on their boat, leaving the other one adrift. it takes a few minutes for ellie to realize they're gone, truly this time, that she'd never catch up with them even if she wanted to. she sits and waits for satisfaction that won't come.

she thinks of joel.

she breathes.


End file.
